** Original Writeup
Author:
Douglas Adams
Title: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Published: 1987 by William Heinenmann Ltd.
ISBN: 0 330 30162 4
Writer
Douglas Adams, author of the
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, master of British wit, brings to his reader a mystery that transcends the bounds of space, time, and common logic. Again. From the campus of St Cedd’s College Adams introduces us to the unsuspecting, talented, Richard MacDuff. Graduate, programmer for WayForward Technologies, keener on
recursive algorithms and owner of an unmovable couch. Richard, and the reader, unsurprisingly to Adams fans, find themselves brutally beaten down the rabbit’s hole through a series of events connecting the endangerment of the creation of Man with an unhappy horse and Richard’s stripping naked and jumping in a canal. Detective Svlad Cjelli, aka Dirk Gently (changed to disassociate himself from “past events”) unravels this beautifully.
With a bevy of support characters portraying a farce of their real world counterparts, and some murder thrown in for good measure the book makes for excellent trans temporal light reading. Meshing science fiction with a touch of fantasy this books belongs in neither genre. The world lacks hardcore technological components one would find in
William Gibson’s
Cyberpunk and the fantasy world as told around campfires nationwide during the summer far exceeds that of Adams. The books whimsical nature is both its pleasure and its undoing. All extreme aspects are sacrificed to the joy of humorists and the dismay of genre fans.
If you have previously enjoyed
Douglas Adams, British comedies such as
Red Dwarf, or
Monty Python then this book will make for a most pleasant read.